Here are some pictures from a recent lunch break photo walk. My Yashica Electro is one of my go to cameras and as I already had the shots from the filming of The Favourite (see previous blog post) on this roll I was keen to finish it to see how they turned out.

During my lunch break photo walk I came across a movie being filmed in part of the Bodleian, it’s titled The Favourite and it turned out that the crew were on their lunch break too. Here are pictures of some of the supporting artists having a smoke break. I really liked the Sheldonian Theatre as a backdrop for these shots and despite the heavy overcast sky I think the light worked out ok.

Behind the scenes photography during filming of Endeavour series 4 episode: Canticle in New College, Oxford on a blazing hot day last July. Fortunately I was in the shade most of the time but I really felt for the dancers in their rain mac’s and welly boots. I’ve tried to show some different angles of the set that weren’t seen in the final edit because a huge amount of work had gone into it. The colours in these pictures are very different to the previous post because I used a different film, in this case Fuji Reala 100 which is one of my favourites for sunny weather photography but sadly it’s not made any more.

Hollywood came to Oxford in the form of Michael Bay and his Transformers 5 film crew to film some scenes for The Last Knight (or was it E75). Security was quite heavy handed but I did my best to document some of the goings on in-between the rain showers. There was a good variety of camera vehicles and they used a drone for some aerial footage of the black Citreon car driving along New College Lane. I’ve got a feeling the scenes filmed in Oxford will probably be set in London in the final edit of the movie.

Michael Bay came to Oxford with his crew at the end of September to film some scenes for Transformers 5: The Last Knight and despite the tight security I managed to do a little behind-the-scenes photography.

One of my favourite rangefinder cameras to use is the Yashica Electro and it’s the camera I most often have with me to take on my lunch break photo walks when I haven’t chosen something else to use. It’s light, quiet, simple to use and the lens gives excellent results. It also looks beautiful too. It’s an aperture priority only camera so there’s no need for an external light meter. Just choose an aperture, focus and click. Simple. Here are some shots from December 2015 and January/February 2016.

My very first visit to Cambridge was in August last year. Up until then I’d always been put off going there because I’m not a huge fan of driving and there isn’t a fast/easy route there from Oxford but when a fellow film photographer friend of mine offered to drive, I was happy to tag along for the trip. My first impression was that Cambridge had better shopping compared to Oxford but from a visual point of view I think Oxford easily wins without a doubt. It seems like the only way to see much of the colleges is by travelling along the river but if that’s not what you’re interested in doing you still have to put up with being hassled every minute by people selling boat trips and punts for hire. I’ve never seen anything like it. Apart from that I had a great time walking the streets of somewhere new, observing life and the comings and goings.

One of the things I enjoy about photographing drama productions is being able to test out films that I wouldn’t usually be able to test out during my lunch hour because they need low light conditions. These shots are from a roll of expired Ilford Delta 400 which I rated at ISO 800 and pushed one stop in the processing. It looks a lot different to the Kodak Double-X that I shot in the same conditions but rated at half the speed. Once again my Yashica Electro 35 proved to be the right camera for the job and I’m becoming a bigger fan of it the more I use it.

This is the first set of pictures from my time backstage at The Oxford Playhouse while the cast of The Furies were getting ready. There isn’t a lot of space in the dressing rooms so I did my best to keep out of the way while still making pictures – notice my reflection in two of the shots. Before arriving I didn’t know what the light levels were going to be like inside but I wanted to test out some Eastman Kodak Double-X motion picture film (the same type that was used by Spielberg for Schindler’s List) so I took a gamble and rated this roll at ISO 400 which is a 1 stop push from box speed. Overall I’m very pleased with the results considering how much contrast there is in these shots – bright lights and black clothing is a torture test for any film. A quick shout out to Charles Graham, the director, for allowing me access and a big thank you to the cast for being so accommodating which always helps to make my job a little easier.

These shots are from the beginning of our day in the city (which started at around 10.30am), coffee in the Rapha cycle shop and then we stopped for lunch near the Lloyds building. I was using three different cameras so these blog posts will be out of order as I’ll be posting my favourite shots from each roll of film.

Last week I spent a day in London with my friend Benedict Campbell doing street photography and here’s the first set of pictures Ben and I used to work together at the same studio many years ago and it’s been over 20 years since we were out photographing together so I was really looking forward to this trip.The weather was surprisingly warm for October, there was a nice atmosphere on the street and people were in a good mood – all good ingredients for an enjoyable day to be photographing on the street. I took three different cameras with me and a selection of different films so there is a good variety of images to follow.